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This paper reports the findings from an investigation of an ambulance crash during which an infant, occupying a transport incubator, was seriously injured. In addition, it reports on the results from the development and testing of a methodology for restraining infants being transported by an ambulance while occupying a transport incubator. During the crash, the incubator detached from the ambulance attachment system. The infant was ejected from the incubator and sustained critical head injuries. Sled testing of a similar incubator system, incorporating exemplar hook-and-pile straps (one common trade name is Velcro®) to secure the infant, demonstrated the inadequacy of this restraint for occupant crash protection as used. Additional sled testing with a five-point restraint harness, increased incubator stability, and improved incubator to ambulance attachment demonstrated the feasibility of effectively restraining an infant while being transported in an incubator during a crash.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), in cooperation with the Canadian Forces Health Services Group Headquarters, U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM), and the Ministry of Health & Long-Term Care, Ontario (Canada), conducted a test program to evaluate the capability of mobile restraint systems to protect occupants in the patient compartment of an ambulance. This paper focuses on the vehicle chassis behavior and acceleration pulses as seen in each test conducted to support the program. This program consisted of testing one Type I ambulance mounted on a Ford F-350 truck chassis (1994 vintage), and three Type III ambulances mounted on Ford E-350 van chassis (two 1993, and one 1999 vintage). A vehicle-to-vehicle side impact test was conducted using the Type I ambulance with a targeted change in velocity of 27.4 kph (17 mph). A 1984 Chevrolet Sierra 2500 was the impacting vehicle for the side test.

The authors have analyzed hundreds of real world crashes and simulated crash tests involving child safety seats. These child safety seats were involved in impacts with a variety of principle directions of force and changes in velocity. Indications of loading of the child safety seat seen during inspections were used by the authors to draw conclusions relative to how the child safety seat was used and loaded during the collision. It was hypothesized that if these marks were created due to loading in the subject crash as expected, that a test program with a similar principle direction of force and load levels could be conducted and the test seats would exhibit similar loading marks. For each of the cases discussed, the authors have inspected the actual child seat involved in a crash and then conducted a test or tests on representative sample(s) of the same type of child safety seat. Following the tests, these child safety seats were inspected for loading marks and comparisons were made.

The Department of Defense (DOD) is making an effort to use advancements in the civilian/commercial world to further assist the U.S. Armed Forces. One area of technology transfer that may be readily used is in the area of occupant crash protection for wheeled vehicles. The U.S. Army uses a large fleet of wheeled light, medium and heavy trucks, many very similar to each other and to commercial vehicles. This study was undertaken to evaluate the occupant crash protection offered by the light trucks and determine the applicability of these technologies to the medium and heavy truck fleets.

This exploratory study investigated the effect of cognitive workload on manual lap belt usage in automatic restraint systems consisting of a passive motorized shoulder belt and a separate manual lap belt. Previous observational studies showed that, while these types of passive automatic restraint systems increased shoulder belt usage, occupants frequently did not engage the manual lap belt. This omission put the occupants at a significantly increased risk of injury in a crash. These studies also suggest that forgetfulness was one of the main reasons that occupants did not engage the manual lap belt. The objective of this study was to quantify manual lap belt usage with this type of automatic restraint system under varying cognitive workloads. Ten subjects participated in two testing sessions consisting of a low and high cognitive workload. During each test session, the subjects drove around a pre-defined course where they exited the vehicle at five locations to perform specific tasks.

This paper reviews seven motor vehicle crashes from the authors' files, in which a child occupant was using a booster-with-shield type child restraint and sustained serious injury.

This paper discusses the ongoing real-world effects on the wearers of restraint systems which are subject to a retractor's failure to lock in a timely manner. Investigation of the ELR performance using both detailed physical examination and inductive methods enables accurate assessment of successful ELR locking at the first opportunity in the crash sequence. Available methods to determine the reliability of the ELR's crash performance are considered and analyzed for assessment of reliability to enable adequate seat belt wearer protection. Corrective measures are analyzed to probe the feasibility of federal safety regulation amendments to mandate a reliability analysis on the propensity for the ELR's failure to lock in a timely manner.

Actual automobile crash scenarios include “wheels-first” landings after the vehicle leaves the road surface and becomes momentarily airborne. These events generate a vertical acceleration vector in a headward direction (+Gz) along the occupant's spinal axis. In this scenario, the vehicle occupant could be in contact with the seat bottom or seat back cushions, or displaced several inches off both the bottom and/or back cushions depending on the effectiveness of the restraint configuration and the dynamics of the vehicle's motion. Military ejection seat researchers have shown that occupant response to +Gz acceleration loading is amplified as a function of the spring-mass damping characteristics of the total system (i.e., the occupant and seat/restraint/cushion subsystems). This amplification phenomenon, commonly known as “dynamic overshoot”, has the propensity to vary widely depending on the built-in controls within a given seat bottom design.